Talking to The Tribune, advocate Arun Kanwal said the department has sent notices to 8,000 assesses, of which over 4,000 are in Ludhiana.
“After VAT was scrapped and the GST regime came into existence, many industrialists changed their accountants and CAs. The GST Department sent an email to the accountants and CAs regarding the assessment, but notices should have been handed over physically to assessees as they had changed their employees. The fact is that 70 per cent of the assessees are not even aware of the assessment procedure and now they have been left in the lurch as penalties are being levied. This is sheer harassment”, Kanwal said.
Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA) president Badish Jindal has also written to the Chief Minister, requesting intervention in the matter.
“The GST Department sent notices and reminders of old VAT cases on the email IDs of lawyers and advocates who no longer work with the businessmen. The department never tried to verify if the assesses were receiving the notices or not. In most of the cases, the businesspersons did not receive them because either the old email IDs were inoperative or the advocates/ lawyers did not inform them,” Jindal said.
Source: The Tribune
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